Introduction/aims : Multiple Individual Audit Outcome Web (MIAOW) is a pictorial representation of outcomes and has been widely utilized in industry, finances and sports, but to our knowledge, not in our specialty. We discuss how this novel method can be applied to display surgical outcomes.

Materials/methods : MIAOW was developed to display multiple patient audit outcomes in cleft surgery and here we to demonstrate its use in that surgical sub-specialty though it could equally be applied to other areas such as such as orthognathic surgery and head and neck oncology.

Results/statistics : Radar charts are practical and useful in providing a pictorial image of multivariate outcome measures used in surgery. They are visually striking and allow visualization and comparison of overall patient outcome, adding interest to what might otherwise be a dry data presentation. In cleft surgery, MIAOW demonstrates a patients’ overall outcome within one graph. It provides an opportunity to compare outcomes in different centres with the objective of increasing the quality of care provided. Motivating colleagues to access the data is also an important purpose of these graphs. MIAOW has been used for several years to successfully illustrate outcomes of individual patients within multicentre cleft audit in the UK.

Conclusions/clinical relevance : We advocate the radar chart form of graphical presentation as an efficient way to display a wide variety of surgical outcome data in a single picture. A prospective study to evaluate their use in oral and maxillofacial surgery is currently in progress.

Key words: cleft; audit; outcome web